The Alphabet Is Better With A Geeky Pop Culture Makeover

By David Wharton | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

FryAs the father of a pair of young lads, I think a lot about their education. There’s so much to teach a child, after all, it’s almost overwhelming to think about where to start. Should I introduce Star Trek or Star Wars first? (Too late: they’re already hooked on Clone Wars.) Are they old enough to be properly traumatized by Labyrinth or Return to Oz? Is it too soon to assign Have Space Suit Will Travel as homework? (I should probably wait until they can read.) Now a pair of artists have made my job just a little bit easier when it comes to raising up my little geeklings, courtesy of a pair of rather awesome variations on that old chestnut, the alphabet.

First up is the “Ultimate Pop Culture ABC’s,” created by Los Angeles artist/illustrator Jeff Victor. It’s your basic riff on the whole “A is for apple” concept, but with some much more fun examples. I really love Victor’s style, particularly his top-heavy rendition of Khan below, which actually manages to look less like his pectorals are about to explode in cartoon form than Ricardo Montalban did in live action. Also, kudos also for going with a less-obvious choice than “Transformer” or “Thundercat” when it came time to pick the T entry.

Khan

Tetsuo

You can see the rest of the “Pop Culture ABC’s” on Jeff’s blog, as well as tons of other good stuff. I’m particularly envious of this Last Starfighter piece he did as a Kickstarter reward. You can order prints of his stuff via his webstore.

Last starfighter

And because great minds think alike, artist Otis Frampton explored a similar idea with his “ABCDEFGEEK” project. Frampton has a great cartoony style all his own, but what I really love about his ABCs is the sense of humor on display.

Ackbar

C-Is-For-Canceled-low-res-square

Q-Is-For-Q-square

S-Is-For-Hope-square

Hell, his project would be worth it even if all it produced was this frankly amazing “R” entry, which, you’d better believe it, is going up on my office wall.

R-Is-For-Regeneration-low-res

Even better, he’s gone all the way through the alphabet once, but did that stop him? Hell no. He’s already started a Volume 2 of “ABCDEFGEEK,” and as far as I’m concerned he should just keep this up until he runs out of ideas. And based on his new “J” entry, I think it’s clear he’s still got plenty of them.

J-Is-For-Josh-low-res

You can buy his prints right here.